Question of the Day: Do You Believe in Past Lives?

I did not really give it much thought until 5 or 6 years ago. At that time my reiki teacher (I’m a reiki master) offered a class in past life regression. My initial reaction was not to go. While I did not NOT believe in past lives, I did not want to know about them, if I’d had them. I did not want to know if I’d been violently killed, or been the Queen of Sheba. I had enough to do dealing with this life!

But, I told a friend about the class, and she wanted to go, badly, so finally I agreed to go. The teacher prepared us by having us write down questions we had about ourselves. Like why we had an attraction to certain things, or felt a certain way that we could not explain. For example, another friend at the class said she had always been attracted to Japanese art and did not know why. I wrote down the question, “Why am I so attracted to the ocean? To be on it, not just at the beach?”

She then guided us into a deep meditation. Since this was a class of about 10 reiki practitioners, we all get into that state pretty easily and the energy in the room was pretty conducive to meditation. She guided us down a set of stairs and told us at the bottom of the stairs would be a person. She instructed us to pay attention to the persons clothing, starting at the feet. I met a young boy 10 or 12 years old, dressed in boots, and pants and a loose shirt that you might see on a child in the 1700’s. He was looking out to sea for his father, on the widows walk of an old New England house. His father turned out to be a sea captain, and who eventually took me onto his father’s boat. When we were brought out of the meditation about an hour later, I understood that the young boy had been me in a past life, and it pretty much explained to me in a way that I felt was true on a very deep level, why I loved the ocean.

Immediately after, I read Dr. Brian Weiss’s book, Many Lives, Many Masters. Dr. Weiss is a psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, educated at Yale and Columbia, and I believe head of the psychology department at the University of Miami. I have seen him interviewed a couple of times on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday. His work cemented my new-found belief and understanding of past lives. I believe that my one time past life regression has helped me to understand myself better, and given me a larger perspective on this life I’m living now. It is somehow consistent with my core spiritual beliefs.

So…..tell me. Are past lives a concept you can believe in, or do believe in past lives? Have you ever had a regression, or would you be willing to? Join the discussion in the comments, please, or write a blog and link it back to this one in a comment, so others can read your thoughts on it.

I find it very interesting and I’m open to it, but remain unconvinced. I do feel a strong connection to the past me’s, had a few experiences which were convincingly memorable, but I do have an active imagination, hence chaos ensues! 😉

You are coming up with some great questions! This is something I’ve often wondered. No conviction of belief, but sometimes It’s like I get a glimpse of something that would suggest a past life as a man, a warrior perhaps. One thing I wonder about is why I’ve loved animals intensely from a very early age. While my parents supported my interest, it did not come from them or anyone else I knew. Dad liked animals okay from a Wisconsin farm perspective, and Mom was a city girl. It’s an intriguing topic.

They say we all have male and female past lives. It would be fun to find out where that attraction for animals comes from.

They alto say groups of souls agree before birth to reincarnate together, to aid in lessons being learned or to settle karmic differences. Which would explain why st times we meet someone and instantly feel like we already know them.